Virginity

Virginity

Hello and welcome. Come along as we take a short walk through my life as a survivor of abuse. And don’t forget to stay to enjoy my gem of positivity at the end.

As a general rule, we are taught as we grow up (well, I was anyway) that virginity is something to treasure. But what if your virginity was taken from you, before you actually knew you had something precious to lose? That you were tainted — made dirty and broken, before you ever knew that you were pure and clean, and whole.

I know that feeling only too well. My virginity was stolen for me when I was only three years old. It was taken by a man our family knew. A trusted family friend. However, for years I’d blocked the memory out. The pain, the fear, the threats I was told. I remember it all clear as a bell — now.

My moods were always unpredictable growing up. I would blow up unsuspectingly at the very slightest thing. I would swallow my feelings in my emotional bottle, until the cork flew out. I never blew up on the things that mattered. Only mere trifles. However, despite the cork being blown off, it didn’t take long before I fitted a new cork. Thus I would have my emotional bottle sealed tightly again.

I was twenty years old before my mind finally said it was okay to start remembering. Even then, the memories would come to me as nightmares. He was (and still is), the “dark man” who haunts my sleep. How do I know the dreams are of real people and places?

I guess I should take a slight step back. Most of my years of growing up are a complete blank to me. I have only patchy recall of people and places. And it’s not just the negative memories that are gone, but the positive ones as well. What I do remember are the animals of my life.

However, from the nightmares I was having (and continue to have), I have given my family an exact description of the man I didn’t know. The “dark man”. I have described places and situations that have been verified.

This man began by playing games with me when I was just two years old. I was too young to know that the games were bad names; unhealthy games for a child to play with any adult, and most definitely a man. He had me right where he wanted me. Trusting him, believing him.

And then the night of pain. The night of blood. The night of knowing I had done something wrong, yet not knowing what. The night I stopped being an innocent child. Yet afterwards, I always had to keep it a secret. If I told, he said, my Mummy would go away and never come back. It would break up my happy family — and I would be to blame. What a monster, to put such a burden on a three year old child.

And yes, he is a monster. He is the “dark man” who haunts my sleep. Even to this very day, he haunts me — except now he haunts my days as well. I doubt he will ever fully go away. I still blame myself for what happened, even though I know he was the adult throughout it all. He knew what he was doing, what he was taking from me. Even though, at the time, I didn’t.

As you will read, if you decide to follow my story, my virginity was key for me to be a whole person. With every further rape I have endured, a little chink of me has be taken away too. And every chink is another part of broken me.

And so, how do I get through, with the knowledge I now have? Slowly, oh so slowly. Those chinks have done their damage. I can never ever be a whole. But it doesn’t mean I can’t heal into something new. Someone just as precious. As if I’d never been raped. Because now the choice is mine.

Today’s gem is a Japanese phrase. It is a short one, a simple one. But just as meaningful and lovely all the same. Just two little words: 

wabi sabi

Simple enough, yes? But it’s meaning is helping me to heal. Wabi sabi means (roughly translated) to see beauty in the imperfect. So for me, even though I feel tainted and broken by what that man started all those years ago, I can still heal. And heal into something just as beautiful, as if I were still whole. That, I think, is a treasure worth keeping.

Thank you for walking along with me this short while. What words or phrases are helping you to heal? Be sure to leave them in the comments. You might just give someone else the gem they need to get through. And until next time, breathe - and believe.